501.BB/10–2146

Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by the Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs (Hiss)

Participants: Mr. D. D. Maclean, First Secretary of the British Embassy
Mr. Alger Hiss

Mr. Acheson informed me Friday evening96 that the Secretary had agreed with the recommendation made to him by the Department in Secdel 1075 of October 897 that we should not oppose the addition of the above item to the General Assembly agenda but instead should move for a clarification of it to ensure the inclusion of Austria as a [Page 961] non-enemy state and also for its expansion to cover troops in ex-enemy states. Mr. Acheson agreed that the British Embassy should be notified promptly of our views and that the Delegation in New York should be instructed not to notify the Secretary General of our intentions until after giving the British advance notice. Mr. Acheson suggested that we might simply notify the British that we intended to send our notification to the Secretary General on Tuesday or Wednesday and were giving the British advance information because of their interest in the matter.

Accordingly I informed Mr. Maclean of the British Embassy last Saturday of our intentions and pointed out that we were giving consideration to making public our own troop dispositions in the course of the Assembly discussion, probably at an early date in the particular committee to which the matter would be referred.

Mr. Maclean thanked me for this information and said he would immediately communicate it to London. He added that he thought our plans would be viewed with concern in London although he recognized the differences between the limited jurisdiction of the Security Council and the general authority of the General Assembly to discuss all subjects.

This morning Mr. Maclean called to say that the Embassy had received a preliminary reply on this subject which stated that the Foreign Office is giving urgent consideration to the problem which they regard as a joint problem since the Russian’s initiative in their opinion is aimed at the United States and Britain. Mr. Bevin had expressed the hope that we would not make our communication to the Secretariat until we had heard further from him. Mr. Maclean assured us that their further views would be forthcoming shortly. He added that the Ambassador was being instructed to take the matter up directly with the Secretary.98

Mr. Maclean said that in view of what I had said on Saturday, namely, that we do not contemplate communicating our views to the Secretary General until Tuesday or Wednesday that he assumed we would be able to wait a short time further until Mr. Bevin’s further views had been received. I assured Mr. Maclean this was the situation.

  1. October 18.
  2. Ante, p. 952.
  3. The file copy of the present document is accompanied by the following handwritten chit, addressed by Mr. Byrnes to Mr. Hiss, which is date-stamped Office of Special Political Affairs October 21, 1946: “Bevin asks we do not talk to Lie about Soviet Resolution as to armed forces until he communicates with me. I have told Ambassador would delay action but urged that he advise me promptly.”